A little while ago, we shared a report where drones, in East Africa at least, had found their purpose as the delicate mediators negotiating for improved relations between humans and animals sharing the border between wildlife parks and settled land.
Well; the actual numbers are in now to substantiate this important work.
According to reports from Kenya, in May and June this year, thermal drones were deployed to dissolve 78 incidents involving elephants encroaching into human settled areas around Amboseli National Park, a semi-arid protected area located near the Kenya-Tanzania border.
In 33 such cases, the drones successfully guided elephants out of people’s farms and back into their side of the border after they had crossed the crop protection fence.
In the remaining cases, the drones were deployed proactively to respond to other incident types, such as wildlife monitoring and anti-poaching surveillance.
The 78 incidents recorded in the months of May and June were part of the overall 9,000 cases of human-wildlife conflicts in the larger Amboseli ecosystem in the past decade, according to information from the 2020 annual report by the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW).
Half of these involved elephants; and elephants do not like any form of noise that reminds them of bees at all.
A 2025 study published in the journal Scientific Reports suggests that elephants can habituate to drones, especially when they are flown according to guidelines which minimise disturbance.
The study considers cases where the drones were flown for observation purposes. However, it says that “erratic and low altitude flight patterns of drones have been shown to consistently elicit a fleeing response, as when used to deter and chase elephants to prevent human-elephant conflict.”
The research was conducted in northern Kenya among African savannah elephant populations, the same species found in Amboseli.
Equipped with payload that includes thermal-imaging technology that enables conservation teams to monitor animal movement, detect wildlife at night and warn communities early before encounters escalate, the drones can have succeeded in deterring elephants from entering farms and settlements by guiding them away from these areas, according to Amy Baird, Deputy Director of US-based conservation non-profit Big Life Foundation.
Researchers at the organisation reckon drones are a safe, cost-effective and efficient way to track elephants’ movements, map and monitor habitats, combat poaching and promote coexistence between people and wildlife.
“Thanks to the use of drones in wildlife conservation, we have seen a reduction in retaliatory injuries and deaths,” Jeremy Goss, Program Director at the Big Life Foundation said.
The drones and the sound of their propellers causes elephants to move away. Drone pilots carefully position the drone behind or above a herd, encouraging it to retreat away from human settlements toward less contentious areas. They are equipped with infrared sensors for use at night and in other low-visibility conditions.
“With their buzzing propellers, sounding like a swarm of bees, these drones are now used to chase elephants from farms,” said John Olekina, a farmer from Kimana Sanctuary, a community-managed reserve that forms a wildlife corridor linking Amboseli National Park with the key elephant habitats of Chyulu Hills and Tsavo West national parks.
The 54-year-old father of four added that the drone technology had also been useful in detecting elephants at night.
The drones work alongside existing approaches that have also been effective in the past, such as strategic fencing, rapid-response rangers, chili oil or thunder flashes.
Although officials in do say the drones have had the added advantage with their thermal capabilities that have massively improved on the as more effective owing to improved precision of elephant and habitat monitoring.
Aside from data collection, the Big Life foundation says it works with communities to protect elephants and conserve habitats in the larger Amboseli ecosystem.
Approximately 200,000 people live in the vicinity of the broader Amboseli region, which encompasses about 8,093 square kilometres of rangelands, wetlands and wildlife corridors, according to the park’s management. As the park itself covers only 392 square kilometres, its survival depends heavily on the health of the surrounding community lands.
And because arable land is scarce in the area, agricultural plots near the Amboseli National Park overlap with natural wildlife habitats, something that the animals have not taken kindly to, resulting destruction of farm crops and counter retaliatory action that has injured or killed elephants.
Experimental use of drones in wildlife conservation in Kenya began in the early 2010s, with broader adoption growing between 2014 and 2016. Conservation organisations and the Kenyan Wildlife Service (KWS) started testing drones for anti-poaching patrols, wildlife monitoring, habitat mapping and human-wildlife conflict mitigation.
In Amboseli, the “open plains and sparse tree cover provide ideal conditions for drones to monitor wildlife movements across the landscape,” said Sospeter Kiambi, a senior conservation researcher at KWS.
“With land transformation accelerating due to [connectivity] with the capital Nairobi, real-time tracking is critical to prevent crop raiding and conflict.”
As widely roaming animals, elephants don’t just cross the boundaries of the park; they also migrate across national boundaries, spending most of the time outside the national park, moving across farms, community land as well as in neighbouring Tanzania.
Both Kenya and Tanzania use drone technology to resolve human-wildlife conflicts, but operators need proper permits and registration from the Kenya Civil Aviation Authority (KCAA) or the Tanzania Civil Aviation Authority (TCAA) before flying.
Yet conservationists are hopeful the approach will work for the Amboseli system — and so are residents.
“The deployment of these drones has emerged as an effective tool for curbing wildlife incursions into community areas,” a local farmer said.
A 2025 census conducted by the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) recorded a population of 42,072 elephants in Kenya, 1,903 of which were counted in the Amboseli park and its surrounding areas.